US tops WEF competitiveness ranking but obesity weighs on score

In the World Economic Forum's annual Global Competitiveness Report, the United States topped the 2018 rankings, "confirming its status of most competitive economy in the world"

The United States has the world's most competitive economy, a World Economic Forum ranking showed Wednesday, but inequality and health problems including obesity took a toll on its score.

United - States - Rankings - Status - Economy

"The United States tops the 2018 rankings, ... confirming its status of most competitive economy in the world," the WEF said in its annual Global Competitiveness Report.

The organisation that hosts the annual Davos pow-wow of business and political elites said it used a new methodology for the 2018 edition of the report to reflect shifts in a world increasingly transformed by new, digital technologies.

Methodology - Shift - United - States - Switzerland

The methodology shift helped the United States unseat Switzerland, which had spent nearly a decade at the top of the WEF ranking. In Wednesday's report Switzerland found itself in fourth place, after the US, Singapore and Germany.

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Overall, the United States scored an average of 85.6 points when the nearly 100 indicators were measured on a scale of 0 to 100.

That is still a far cry from what WEF considers the optimal conditions for a competitive economy, but well above the global average of 60 points.

WEF - United - States - Business - Dynamism

WEF hailed the United States for its business dynamism and vibrant entrepreneurial culture, its flexible labour markets, the depth, breadth and relative stability of its financial system and its market size.

'Innovation powerhouse'

Innovation - Power - House - Saadia - Zahidi

"They're an innovation power house," Saadia Zahidi, a member of the WEF's managing board, told AFP.

When asked if President Donald Trump could take credit for the ranking, Thierry Geiger, head of analytics and quantitive research at WEF, stressed that most of the data...